Hi there! You want to be the best, right? Me too.

But hold on. Backtrack. What exactly do we mean by, “the best?”

For me, it was the highest ranked title with the most prestige. The one that can fill at least fifteen minutes of family conversation at Thanksgiving. The one that elicits respect from friends, classmates and strangers alike. And, of course, the one that makes a college counselor look a little more carefully at an application.

And then, I joined Torch.

In Torch, my ideas are valued and considered, my advice is heard and my mistakes are politely corrected. Because Torch offers me respect and growth, I have learned to write with integrity and work towards deadlines with care and precision.

I honestly cannot say that I have found these conditions anywhere else at Glenbrook North.

Part of the application for Torch editor positions includes making a list of our priorities for the following year. In my senior editor application, I prioritized Torch second to only one other activity, because in that activity I knew I would have a “better” position with a fancy title. So that was my top priority, right?

Last May, I discovered a scheduling conflict that would require me to either take a class at Glenbrook South or drop the Torch class. Between the schedule delay and transportation times, choosing the class at GBS would force me to arrive over 30 minutes late to the club I prioritized over Torch and miss the majority of its meetings. I decided against the GBS class, and I now spend my lunch in the last 45 minutes of the Torch class doing advertising work and whatever else I can to help production. I gave up my role as a Sports Editor because I didn’t have enough time in half the class to collaborate on pages and articles.

Even after they were reduced, my Torch responsibilities have always been the most exciting. Whether I am editing images from local businesses to design their advertisements or feeling bits of turf sink into my skin as I lay on the soccer field angling for the perfect photo, I feel the work is uniquely mine.

No matter what five-word title you slap on your role, some environments are engineered to cultivate personality and individuality in a give-and-take relationship with its members, while others have been repeating the same pattern since the Stone Ages because it “works fine.”

Don’t settle for “fine.”

It doesn’t matter if you’re a benchwarmer on a JV sport and the chairman of a national organization. If you find yourself becoming a tough, motivated person from the grueling hours of running laps at practice and bored out of your mind at the organization’s meetings, pick the sport. Your schedule is directed towards college admissions? Well, counselors can detect a mature personality from the written application more than they can from a position on a resume.

I can only imagine how much I could have flourished if I had prioritized Torch. Whether this is your first or last year at GBN, don’t make my mistake going forward. When it comes time to write your own list of priorities, select activities that develop the best parts of your character, no matter your rank within them.